


A Dream of Retold Lives

by cthulhu_is_chaotic_good



Category: Alex Rider - Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:28:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27739957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cthulhu_is_chaotic_good/pseuds/cthulhu_is_chaotic_good
Summary: Alex doesn’t remember dying, and he isn’t sure that he’s dead. But what other explanation can there be for waking up in a locked room with one gun and the two men who killed his family?Elsewhere, John and Helen Rider meet a much older version of Ian than the man they left behind in England.A story told about what may yet be a dream, but certainly isn’t yet the whole version of the truth.
Relationships: Helen Rider/John Rider
Comments: 84
Kudos: 130





	1. Chapter 1

He didn’t know if he’d died with a bang or a whimper.

Alex didn’t remember dying at all.

His first thought when he opened his eyes to see the white void of ceiling was that he’d been kidnapped, and then he sat up and saw _them_. Two men who’d died, each after taking out members of Alex’s family. Two men who’d died in front of Alex.

Hysterical laughter had threatened to bubble up then, as he’d realized he was dead. And then panic set in, because he was with two men who weren’t kind and weren’t alive anymore - in part because of Alex - and weren’t friends themselves.

And all of that was before he spotted the gun, lying amongst a pile of scattered objects in the middle of the floor.

It was thanks to the grace of the gods, if they existed (and if they did Alex supposed he might have a chance to meet one or more soon) that Yassen and Ash, each in a separate corner of the room, lay unconscious, each propped against the wall.

Alex took the gun.

He didn’t want a weapon, not really, but what was the alternative? Either of the men had reason to kill the other, and then – if not first – they would turn to Alex.

Neither man stirred.

Alex checked the magazine, and knew right away that he was out of luck determining how many bullets could be fired. The handgun was a Glock 17, and it held what looked to be a 17-round magazine, but what if the weapon had already been used?

Confident that at least he could now defend himself if needed, Alex stepped towards the only door in the room, and went to open the door

The handle wiggled but didn’t open.

He was locked in.

“No,” Alex murmured. This was a nightmare; the only logical explanation was this place was a dream taunting him.

_(Why did it feel real so real?)_

If this was a dream, waking the men didn’t matter. Even dying didn’t matter. Running out of bullets didn’t matter.

Alex aimed the gun and fired below the door handle at the keyhole.

The shot was deafening in the tight room, and the bullet left a hole in the door – in the wrong spot. Next to where Alex had shot, but not in the same place. Alex grabbed the handle and twisted it – nothing happened. The door was held still in place.

Alex shot again, once, then twice. Neither worked.

Someone was behind him – he sensed it more than heard anything, with his ears ringing from the shots. Alex whirled around, gun outstretched.

“Get back!”

Yassen, a step away, paused. Alex stepped back, once and then again, until he was backed against the wall furthest from the men.

“Alex?”

Ash, in the corner, eyes wide and panicked, was staring at him.

“Get in the corner,” Alex commanded Yassen. Ash, clearly frightened already, turned his head to Yassen.

It was impossible to disguise the sudden loathing in his godfather’s eyes.

Yassen retreated, and the room became a quiet stalemate.

Alex slid down against the wall. He needed to figure out what was happening, and if he was dead, and why he was here.

_If someone had killed Alex, had they killed Jack as well?_

“You’re both dead,” Alex said, when perhaps he should have broken the news more politely.

“Am I?” Yassen asked.

Yes. He had seen it; had watched the life drain from Yassen’s face on the plane.

_So many people dead, in just a few months. And now Alex was among them._

“You don’t remember dying?”

Yassen considered him a moment. A strange look passed over his face. Then, softly, “Yes.”

“Am I dead?” Alex asked. He heard his voice tremble. “I don’t remember it.”

Alex had almost died before, and this wasn’t the same. He had been almost happy to die before – he’d seen his parents waiting for him after being shot. Why wasn’t he with his parents now? 

_Of all the people Alex could wake to in Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory, did Alex deserve to be with these two?_

Yassen regarded him, blankly.

“Alex,” Ash said again. His voice, hoarse, sounded unused for decades. “You have to shoot him.”

Alex’s hand quivered, just once. He didn’t want to start his journey in the afterlife by shooting the dead. Yassen, in turn, merely shook his head. “No, you don’t.”

“I’m not going to, as long as you both stay there.” Alex steadied the gun. He aimed it on the floor between the corners Ash and Yassen were in, just above the pile of objects. “Sit down.”

Yassen took a seat.

Ash let out a sudden groan.

“Do you remember dying?” Alex asked. “I know you died. I was there.” _After you betrayed me, like you did my parents._

“I’m sorry, Alex,” Ash replied, pained. “I never meant for you to get hurt.”

“You would have let them kill me!” Unspoken were the words _you were meant to protect me._

Yassen interrupted their trip down unpleasant memory lane. “You’re older.”

_Not by much._

“I was fifteen.”

He’d only been fifteen when he’d gone to sleep after a movie night with Tom and Jack and had apparently never woken up.

Again, Alex wanted to laugh. Fifteen, and he’d died. Been killed. Whatever. MI6 would be disappointed. They’d wanted at least a few more months out him, he was sure.

“I’m sorry.”

For what it was worth, Yassen sounded sincere.

“You were going to kill children,” Alex replied, because the irony was he would have died at 14 if Sayle had succeeded, and instead he’d saved everyone else and died a child anyway. “I bet it wasn’t personal, though.”

_Sending Alex to SCORPIA had been personal, and that hadn’t worked out well either._

_For that one, though, Alex didn’t blame him. Yassen hadn’t known what was being unleashed._

“You have no idea what he’s done,” Ash spat. “He would have killed more than children if he hadn’t died. He worked for SCORPIA for years, Alex. Shoot him, before he hurts us.”

_There was no us. Not with a man who’d allowed Alex to be sent off to have his eyes ripped from his head._

Disgust crossed Yassen’s features. “You should be quiet.”

Ash, if anything, grew more confident. “Alex, _shoot him._ He’s dangerous, and he’ll take the gun and kill you. I never meant to hurt you, I didn’t, you must know that. Gregorovich is a _killer_.”

_Shoot the killer and become the killer instead?_

_Alex had already killed people, in life. He didn’t want the afterlife to be more of the same._

“You’re both killers,” Alex replied, impressed by how calm he managed to make his voice, despite everything. “My parents are dead because of you.”

Yassen, already an almost motionless statue, stilled even more. The man looked as if wasn’t even breathing.

_Why were they breathing at all when they were dead?_

“No,” Ash protested, weakly. “I didn’t kill them. They were already dead – SCORPIA knew.” A sudden conviction entered Ash. He straightened, looking intently at Alex. “You think Gregorovich won’t kill you? Does he know what your father did? Does he know what you did, after he died? Kill him, or I’ll tell him and we’ll both be targets!”

Alex should threaten Ash. Should keep Ash quiet, to keep some sort of semblance of peace between Yassen and Alex in this windowless, lit, blank room in a yet-unknown hell.

Yassen deserved to know the truth.

“My father was with MI6,” Alex said. “And I stayed with MI6, after a month with SCORPIA. SCORPIA doesn’t exist anymore. I stopped them.”

_Julius didn’t exist anymore. Rothman. Yu. Nile. So many others._

Yassen was unreadable.

“Alex,” Ash barked. “You’re making a mistake. He’ll kill you.”

“I’m already dead,” Alex pointed out, because what was the point of caring and fighting to stay alive when he _wasn’t._

Yassen stood.

“Stay down,” Alex insisted, because apparently some hidden part of him did care about staying in the afterlife after all.

“Have you looked in the middle?” Yassen asked.

Yes, Alex had looked. Briefly. Under the gun had been a blanket, and a tarp under that. There was a bottle of pills that might have been for Ash if he was alive and still injured, and there was an apple, and several books, and a statue of an obese cat, and some other junk that looked to taken from the trash pile of a local charity shop.

The gun was the object Alex needed to exit the room. Except if he turned around, Yassen or Ash would be upon him.

“Sit down,” Alex said again.

Yassen surveyed him for a moment. Alex must have appeared serious enough, because Yassen nodded and then sat again.

“We can leave here,” Ash said. “I’ll leave you alone if you want. But Alex, you’re not a killer. I know you don’t want to kill anyone.”

“You just told me to kill him.”

_Several times, at that._

“I was wrong. Give me the gun, and I’ll do it. I’ll protect you and then we can leave, and go our separate ways. You never have to look at me again.”

_Hell was other people._

_Death was supposed to be peaceful, not this din of two men who should have stayed quietly dead bothering him to kill the other again._

“Tell me to give you the gun again and I’ll give it to Yassen,” Alex said.

He wouldn’t, of course.

But the threat shut Ash up.

“I just want to leave,” Alex said.

Neither man responded.

Lost in their own thoughts, they were quiet for a while. Alex couldn’t stand it. He didn’t want to think about his death, or worry about Jack, or wonder more about why this was happening.

Eventually, Alex wondered aloud, “What happens now?”

“That’s up to you,” Yassen said.

_Was this a philosophy of destiny class? Your fate is up to you, unless it’s up to others?_

_Perhaps it should be a religions class – quick, class, if you open the door after finding yourself in a room in the afterlife, what god will you meet?_

Alex stood. “Both of you stay there,” he said. He walked to the door and wiggled the door handle, keeping his gun trained near Yassen all the while.

The door didn’t open.

“What’s outside?” Alex asked.

“I don’t know. I woke up here, the same as you.”

Alex glanced at Ash. “You’re the same? You didn’t wake up somewhere else first, before here?”

Ash only shook his head. And then he inhaled, sharp, and put a hand on his stomach.

Yassen didn’t bother to hide his amusement. “I suppose old injuries continue in death?”

Ash cursed.

Alex couldn’t bring himself to care and interfere.

Ash’s eyes went to the pill bottle in the middle of the room. “I need those,” he said.

“Why?”

“Please understand, Alex,” Ash pleaded, pained. “I’m on your side.”

“It’s a bit late for that.”

_An entire life too late._

Alex turned the gun to the door and shot again, twice.

The door wouldn’t open. The wood of the door was entirely splintered, but the handle didn’t look damaged at all.

They need a key to unlock the door. They didn’t have a key; they had a gun. And the gun wouldn’t hit the lock to allow the door to open. He was stuck.

Alex couldn’t have planned a worse hell if he’d tried.

“The door won’t open,” Alex admitted, aiming the gun again between the two men.

“I can try,” Yassen said.

“I’m not giving you the gun.”

“Not with the gun. Let me look at what’s in the middle. Perhaps there’s something I can pick the lock with.”

“No!” Ash said, desperately.

“Why do you care?” Alex asked. “He might get us out of here, and you won’t have to see him again.” Then his eyes followed Ash’s to the pill bottle.

Slowly, Alex walked over to the pile of scattered objects in the middle of the room, keeping the handgun steady between the two men. He didn’t want to, but Alex could fire before either attacked him, if he needed.

Neither man moved. Alex picked up the pill bottle. “You’re worried about this?”

“Please, Alex.”

Alex tossed the bottle to Yassen. The Russian caught it, and raised an eyebrow.

“You killed my mum,” Alex said. “I don’t care what happens to you.”

_John Rider might have had some idea of what he was doing when he went undercover, but Helen Rider had been completely innocent. And neither of them had deserved to die._

He pulled through the items a bit, looking for a wire, or anything that would help. There was nothing that even remotely resembled something that would help.

“There’s nothing.”

Yassen nodded. “Then perhaps I can try with the gun?”

Alex didn’t have to think about that. “No.”

He settled himself back against the wall. Yassen was considering him, and toying with the pill bottle in his hand. Ash was shuddering, staring at Yassen with the same mixture of hatred and horror that he’d had so long.

Time passed. Ash said nothing more, although occasionally he’d gasp or adjust his position. He must have realized that bargaining with Alex was a losing proposition. Yassen paid Ash little mind, although he continued to keep the pill bottle turning in his hands, where Ash couldn’t help but to see the medicine that he so badly needed in the hands of a man he despised.

Endless time passed. And Alex was beginning to feel tired. He wasn’t hungry, and he wouldn’t have tried the apple in the middle of the room anyway.

_Alex had heard enough fairy tales – not many, but enough – to know not to trust strange apples._

To die was to sleep, to dream, to drift.

Apparently in death, sleep was still inevitable.

Alex found himself adrift in his thoughts, struggling to stay awake, aiming the gun alternatively at both men between quick seconds of closing his eyes.

“Alex, you’re going to fall asleep,” Ash said at a point that didn’t matter, because time wasn’t real in death.

He was going to stand, and shoot the door again, and it didn’t matter if he was grabbed by either man. He’d fought long enough. But he must have drifted off half in thought of standing up and shooting the door, because he had the gun in his hand one moment and the next he heard Ash shout as Alex felt a soft touch brush his fingers, and then he didn’t have the Glock anymore.

He opened his eyes, overcome with exhaustion. Yassen put a hand up in warning. “Stay here.”

_None of this mattered._

Alex closed his eyes.

_He was pulled down, towards the darkness. The bottom of the dream was purely black, and Alex was rushing there faster than he’d ever run in his life. And there was a small beeping noise, growing louder and louder and the incessant and loud and erratic._

“Alex,” a voice said, distantly.

There was a hand on his shoulder, calmly waking him.

Alex was disorientated but awake again, so much as one could be awake here.

Yassen, kneeling beside him, held up a small key with one hand. The Glock was in the other.

“Where was it?” Alex muttered.

“It was in the blanket.”

_Obviously._

There was a groan on the far side of the room.

Ash!

Alex glanced over, not sure what he expected – or hoped - to see.

What he hadn’t expected was Ash sitting and continuing to suffer from his past wound, unharmed.

Ash caught Alex staring. Bitterly, he bit out, “You should have stayed awake.”

“You’re fine,” Alex responded.

“For now.” Ash smiled unpleasantly. “Have you heard the plan?”

Alex shook his head.

“Your godfather is going to lead us outside,” Yassen said. “I will unlock the door and he will go through first.”

“And if I survive, I get a reward. Isn’t that kind.”

_The pills._

“What about me?” Alex asked.

The Russian considered him. “You’re leaving the room last,” Yassen said. “If there are problems, close the door behind us.”

Ash laughed. “Just the two of us, exactly as I always hoped.”

Yassen stood and moved to the door. “Get up,” he commanded Ash.

Alex’s godfather stood with some difficulty, and moved cautiously across the room. Yassen stopped him when he was still a meter from the door. Alex got up as well, and walked over to Yassen after glancing at the discarded goods on the floor and rejecting all of them as unnecessary.

“Are you ready, Alex?” Yassen asked.

_He didn’t know._

Yassen saw his hesitation. He warned, “There’s the possibility that outside isn’t any better than here.”

_There was always the risk that the other side was worse._

“I’ll take my chances,” Alex decided.

Yassen unlocked the door, then stood back, allowing Alex to back up while staying behind him.

Ash went to the door. He hesitated, as if hoping Yassen would change the plan, or perhaps Alex would interfere.

When that didn’t happen, Ash opened the door.


	2. Chapter 2

Outside the doorway, the glow of dawn beckoned them out onto a beach. The shallow strip of cluttered sand (although cluttered with what, Alex couldn’t quite make out) before the water left space enough for a few grown adults to lay. Beyond and above the water the sun was hovering over the horizon, casting a light that would need a while yet to become the bright of day.

“Walk outside,” Yassen said.

Ash snorted and took two steps – hesitant in the first, and then, after no noticeable change occurred when he had passed the threshold of the door, he was bold in the second.

Whatever transformation Ash might have feared seemed to be only a fiction told by the mind. In fact, Ash looked much the same as he had moments before, and much as he had appeared the second time they’d met, in Thailand after the military exercise in Australia. When Alex had met Ash then, he’d thought Ash could almost be a movie star, with his long, black hair, tamed yet shaggy beard, and tanned skin. Even the silver chain around Ash’s neck was the same as their first meeting.

_Appearances hid lies. And the only resemblance Ash had to a movie star now was that of a Hollywood villain._

Ash must have felt reassured that it was safe (enough), and he stumbled forward several more steps, towards the water.

Yassen, the gun lowered in his hand so it no longer pointed straight at Ash, followed. Once again, nothing more occurred than another man entering the early morning beach.

What if Alex followed, and something entirely different happened to him? If this was a dream, perhaps leaving the room would be the point where he woke up from this awful nightmare.

_Dreams didn’t feel this real, and besides: nothing could be discovered by hiding in this place._

Leaving the room felt as normal as death could feel. Alex took another step onto the beach, only for his shoe to bump into an object. Alex looked down to discover a broken child’s train under his tennis shoe.

The whole stretch of sand, as far as Alex could see, from the tree line not far beyond the room (a paltry windowless shack of four grey-bricked walls and a tin roof) to the water, was littered with items. It reminded Alex of the mess in the middle of the shack they had just been inside – the objects akin to nothing more than discarded remnants of a donation bin that had already been combed through, leaving little behind that could still prove useful.

Alex knelt to examine a few objects near him: a ripped pink umbrella, an empty box of tissues, a broken pearl necklace, a torn Christmas hat, and more debris endlessly scattered haphazardly around.

_Were they on The Island of Unusable Trash?_

He stood, still looking around him. Close by, Ash was scornfully appraising the refuse while Yassen stared at the water. Alex took a step back, and realized he’d stepped again on an item, this time the hat.

For the first time, Alex truly paid attention to what he was wearing. He hadn’t died in these clothes.

A t-shirt supporting his favorite football team and jeans, along with tennis shoes – what was so special about those choices that he now had them for eternity? He’d been wearing pajamas to bed, not jeans, so the obvious idea that you kept what you died in was out.

_He’d been in his bed. He wouldn’t have needed shoes then, at the least._

Ash was dressed for the place, with his beach clothes – shorts and a light purple t-shirt. It wasn’t what he’d died in, either. Yassen, too, was in a different outfit than Alex had watched him bleed out in. The dark jumper and dark jeans could have fit in anywhere, though, so at least the clothes seemed to fit the pattern of resembling clothes that could be owned by the person wearing them.

Yassen caught Alex staring. “Look at the water,” he said.

Alex did.

Only a moment of watching the water was enough to spot what Yassen must have noticed.

There were no waves coming ashore and lapping against the bank, and no ripples from bugs skittering along the surface of the sea. There were no changes in the light reflecting off the body of water. It was completely still, serving as a pale but perfect unbroken mirror to reflect the dawn on.

Alex listened, and noticed what else was wrong about the place.

There was no wind here. No birds calling. No leaves rustling, from the trees dotting the tree line in the near distance.

There was no noise at all, save for the sounds made by the three of them.

“Are you two allies now?” Ash asked. “The SCORPIA agent and the MI6 spy, the best of friends. John would be so pleased.”

_Alex’s dad was dead too. Why did his legacy matter anymore? All of them were far too gone now to do anything in life to make him happy, and Alex hadn’t even met the man._

“Would he?” Yassen said mildly. “I’m sure he expected his son would keep better company than you, certainly, but I’m not sure I was the next choice.”

Ash snarled, “I’m his bloody godfather. You weren’t anything. Just the boy he left behind.”

“There’s a boat,” Alex said, because he wanted them both to stop arguing and because it was true. Far in the distance, on the side of the beach that didn’t disappear into trees, was a boat directly next to the shore. Yassen and Ash, momentarily quiet, looked in the direction Alex was pointing. They must have seen it too, judging from Yassen’s slight frown.

“Lead us there,” Yassen instructed. He aimed the gun at Ash, again.

“You owe me first.”

_Pain hurt in so many ways, and took so many forms. Ash might have been a decent man before his pain had taken the form of an all-consuming personal vendetta as well as a stab wound. Alex was unlucky to be here. Right now, with Yassen in charge, Ash must be in a personal hell._

“Do I?”

“Give me a couple or shoot me,” Ash said. “Alex can be your fucking test subject then.”

“With a godfather like that,” Yassen muttered. He drew the bottle of pills from his pocket. “Alex, give him two,” he said, before tossing the bottle sideways to Alex.

Alex caught the bottle, and unscrewed the top to take two pills out. Ash stared at him all the while.

“Don’t get close to him,” Yassen warned.

Alex tried to toss the two small white disks to Ash, but they fell short. Ash glared as he slowly stooped to pick them up. “You’re trusting the wrong man if you listen to him.”

_He didn’t trust either of them._

Ash made a face as he swallowed the pills. And then, almost instantly, his face smoothed.

“Are you feeling alright?” Alex asked, not out of interest for Ash’s well-being.

“It’s gone,” Ash whispered. He stared at Alex. “All of it. Immediately. It’s gone. _The pain's gone._ ”

The pill bottle appeared as normal as every bottle of medication Alex had held; it was no more fantastical in appearance than the doorway to the beach.

_If all of Ash’s pain was gone immediately, this wasn’t a normal bottle of pills._

“Helpful,” Yassen observed. “Now walk.”

Trash continued to sprawl across the sand in their long, quiet walk towards the boat in the distance. The sun never rose higher in the sky and never lowered closer to the water, and there continued to be no sound except their feet against the beach, but time was passing in the sense that they proceeded forward. Once or seven times Alex considered leaving the group, but Ash was right that while Yassen had the gun it was probable that he wouldn’t let either Ash or Alex wander off. Who better to be test subjects for uncertain features in the area than the only other two people who currently seemed to exist?

_At this point, could they even be said to exist?_

When they were close enough, Alex made out a small dock connecting the boat to the beach. He knew the ship; he’d been on it before. The _Fer de Lance_ was out of place among the refuse strewn surroundings, and it was a large enough yacht that it almost should not have been on such a small dock.

Alex stopped and stared not at the water, but into it. It was clear soon how the boat was not stranded on the sand. At first, under the still water, Alex could see more sand cluttered with more items. Then perhaps four meters out, there was no more sand. Only dark blue water, and Alex imagined if he wandered into the water, he would suddenly find himself treading water to keep afloat, as opposed to standing in a shallow bank.

_There was some logic in death, then. Even boats needed water underneath to float._

“It’s your boat,” Alex said, for something to break the unreal silence, knowing that Yassen would surely recognize his own possession before Alex did.

Yassen corrected him. “It’s a boat I rented.”

Ash, ahead of them both, scoffed. It wasn’t a loud sound, but it carried without any other sounds competing.

“Do you have something to say?” Yassen could almost have been asking.

Ash stopped.

“Keep going,” Yassen said.

“John left you to SCORPIA,” Ash said, his back still turned to them as he refused to continue onwards. “He had his family to care for. And then I worked for SCORPIA while Alex helped dismantle it. We have more in common than you think. If you need to point a gun at someone, point it at Alex.”

“I don’t think we do. Walk.”

“He _left you.”_

“He did his job remarkably well, while he was working for MI6.”

Alex didn’t think that was a compliment.

Yassen continued, “He was also a competent teacher, regardless of his allegiances. Enough so that I was able to know to take you down based on your own mistake.”

_Mdina._

Ash’s hands clenched.

“I have no reason to be angry at John, or at Alex. _Walk forward_ , or you will be soon be asking for more medicine for the hole in your hand.”

Alex had heard enough threats in life. Apparently, death was no escape from violence, although Alex had heard death was supposed to be the time to sleep, away from worries and stress.

“I’m tired,” Alex mentioned. He’d been drifting off in the room before adrenaline had kept him awake for a time, but now his thoughts were drifting again.

_To Jack, and Tom, and Mrs. Jones’ face when she realized Alex couldn’t work for her anymore._

_Some part of Alex thought she might even be sad that he was gone._

“Keep walking,” Yassen said, this time to Alex. This time it wasn’t a threat.

Alex wouldn’t tempt out problems if he could avoid them, though. He kept walking, following the two men to the boat. Soon it loomed above them, as large as in Alex’s memory.

They approached it, Ash leading the way. On the dock they stood quiet a moment, listening. There were no more sounds from inside the boat than from anywhere else in the place.

“Do you know how to pilot a boat?” Yassen asked.

Ash only shook his head.

“You’ll enter last, anyway,” Yassen decided. “Alex, check inside.”

_There was no time to anticipate or dread. Expect the unexpected, and one couldn’t be surprised._

Alex climbed inside. The room was familiar; he was in a wide room with the steering wheel and other controls to the boat at front, and a door on one side in front of the leather sofas lining the back wall, a low table in front of the sofas. The table was where Alex had found Yassen’s gun, before.

_In life._

Instead, there was a large paper with fold lines that could only be a map, judging from the blue and green shapes on it. Alex crossed the room to see if he recognized the place on the map.

The map must be of a local area. On it were a series of increasingly large islands surrounded by sea. No labels identified the places on the map, but in the corner was a compass rose, and a large red circle on the largest island had a few words scrawled in handwritten letters by it. Alex’s gaze jumped to the circle, hoping for some clarity.

The timeless nightmare froze.

He felt his face, his hands, his body as a whole suddenly feeling alert and awake and scared and uncertain.

“What’s that?” Yassen asked, his voice sounding far away.

Alex had never wished for an eidetic memory so much as now. Because Yassen would probably take the map, and Alex would be left with nothing but a vague idea of where to go.

“Alex?”

He couldn’t find the words to respond.

“Sit down,” Yassen said, and Alex turned to see Ash take a seat on a sofa. Alex tried to steady his hands, so he could play the map off as unimportant.

“It’s a map,” Alex said, and he knew at once he’d failed to keep the tremble out of his voice.

Yassen walked to him, holding out a hand.

Alex handed it over, and waited for the reaction. It didn’t take long.

“Ah,” Yassen said softly. He returned the map to Alex.

“Does that tell us what’s happening?” Ash demanded.

“No,” Yassen replied.

Ash crossed his arms and leaned back, attempting to look relaxed. “It’s a map, so it tells us where we are. Does it tell us where to go?”

“Yes,” Alex said, knowing it wouldn’t be where Yassen would be interested in taking them if they even stayed together, and that he didn’t know how to steer a boat to get there even if it had just been him.

“I suppose we’re heading to a shiny set of gates,” Ash said bitterly.

_Neither man deserved that._

Ash didn’t deserve to know the truth. Alex still wanted to say it aloud, now that it was pointless to hide it. He wanted to confirm it was real. “It says where to find my parents.”

\--

Helen Rider had been on a plane when she’d died.

She remembered it clearly, although it was best not to dwell on the moment.

One instant she had been alive, with hopes and dreams (and fears, many of which were much stronger than the aforementioned hopes and dreams). The next she had opened her eyes in a cabin on a beach, with her husband beside her.

“They knew,” he’d said as they both reached the moment of realization of what must have happened.

Helen had wanted to cry. Had almost cried, because they had almost been safe, and didn’t matter to stay strong when they were already dead. The only reason she hadn’t was because her child wasn’t there with them.

John was worried, and his worry caused Helen to worry in turn. John hadn’t admitted it to her, of course, but he fretted (for Alex but also for Ian, although the two had never been close).

And yet time passed – or didn’t, looking at the sun hovering just above the sea – and Alex either stayed alive or went to a better place than they had ended up. A different place, at least, although Helen couldn’t imagine a child of only a few months ending up somewhere worse.

They had explored from the beginning, at first as a distraction from the reality that they were dead, and their son may join them in that state soon, and then out of curiosity and boredom. The beach, sandy and vast, stretched in both directions when they left the cabin. The forest behind their cabin seemed endless. Inside the cabin, the layout was similar enough to a small residence they’d once vacationed in when they had just become engaged. There were small differences – the color of the sheets was duller here, for one small example. The lack of the two restrooms was a much larger one.And then there was the fixed state of the world. The sun hung in the sky, unmoving. The weather never changed from its calm, cloudless condition.

Aspects of the place they were in were stranger than even that. They didn’t need food to eat, as they weren’t hungry. They never slept, or grew tired. The radio in their home played exactly what they were hoping to listen to when they turned it on, but never songs that they didn’t know already. Sometimes food would appear in the fridge just when they hoped for some, but when they ate, they never became overfull, or noticed any taste stronger than a shadow of what it had been in life. And however much they ate, the lack of a restroom was never a problem.

A looming eternity faced them when the first visitor appeared. The visitor knocked on their door, and Helen opened it to find the first person besides John that she had seen since arriving in this place: her cousin Margaret, dead from a drug overdose.

Helen had always known Margaret needed more support than Helen had ben able to give, but life was complicated like that. Death was almost less so. Margaret had stayed a bit, and then, after a private conversation where the two relived the horror stories of their youth, Margaret had left. Helen and John didn’t hear from her again.

Three more guests came in time, all for Helen, and all stayed only briefly. They never left traces of their visits, and after they walked into the forest they were gone. Helen and John learned not to expect them back.

Time was odd here, Helen knew that, with the endless dawn that continued from one moment to the next. Amongst all the impossibilities of the afterlife, the one most difficult for her to track was time. Helen guessed it was maybe a month that they’d been in the cabin before her cousin stopped by, and two or three weeks between the others. By the last guest, she’d noticed that time on Earth must have passed differently, because her friend from the hospital had crows feet she’d never had when Helen knew her, and her friend mentioned children Helen hadn’t heard of and machines at work she’d never operated.

The two took their time exploring the surrounding areas. For some reason, they never felt like they managed to get far. In the first few times they’d attempted to leave the area by the forest, Helen found herself looping back to the cabin every few minutes before John would step in with his expertise and turn them back around. Yet even heading in the direction opposite the cabin, all they found was more woods. When they walked for miles on the beach, all they saw was sand. There weren’t even seagulls or crabs to watch on their walks.

A deck stretched out into the water, off the beach in front of their cabin. No boats ever appeared. Helen had asked each guest where they’d come from, but all mentioned waking up in the chair on the cabin’s porch, and all had walked into the woods and gone without explaining where they were going or how they knew to walk that way. So the dock remained unused.

They were discussing if they should make a boat. They’d been thinking about it for some time. Their lives – or really, their deaths – were peaceful, but John was restless. In truth, Helen was too. No sleep, no real food, no new music – it was the opposite of living.

They were in the middle of discussing how to best make the boat when the knock on the door came.

John cast an amused look at Helen, as if to say ‘another friend?’, and then he’d gone to open the door. Helen had followed, ready for another intimate conversation that no longer needed to keep so many truths hidden, because where could one be honest but in death?

The knock wasn’t from one of her friends.

“Ian?” Helen asked, when it was clear John wasn’t going to. The man who peered at them, semi-quizzical and semi-bemused, wasn’t the man they’d left behind in England. He was older, much as Helen’s last friend had been. He was dressed in nicer clothing.

The now older yet younger of the brothers stared back at her. “Helen,” Ian said, astonished. “Am I dead?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise that by the end of this story, there will be an explanation for what is happening.
> 
> I don't promise that the explanation will come much sooner than that. But perhaps you can figure someone it out before then. (There's already one rather large clue as to one part of this world that doesn't quite fit).


	3. Chapter 3

The three of them were sitting in the cabin’s living room, quietly. Helen held John’s hand tight. She looked at John, expectantly, as if John would be the first one to break their silence.

John wasn’t sure what to say.

Of course he had hoped his brother would have lived longer than some forty-odd years. Yet there’s no point to sadness now that Death’s happened; tears or melancholy won’t reverse the certain. All that really mattered was Alex was alive, and as Ian had stammered before they’d let him in, the last he’d seen Alex he was fine. _And a teenager._

“What happened?” John asked.

Ian could read him enough to understand the question. “How did I die, you mean?”

It was pointless to mince words. “Yes.”

Ian shook his head, a vaguely puzzled expression written across his face. “It’s still coming back to me. I was in a car, but I don’t think it was a crash.”

“Was it work?” Helen asked.

If Ian had kept working for MI6 while caring for John’s child, John would – not actually be surprised. That didn’t mean he had to pretend to like his brother for it.

Ian’s eyes widened. “Sayle!”

John couldn’t mask his impatience. “Who’s Sayle?” _And if someone was after Ian, would they be after his child – his teenager?_

It was unbelievable that John had, only recently, found himself in this place after being murdered and now his child was a teenager. If John had been a softer man, he would have mourned missing those moments of his son’s childhood, now gone. Instead, he spent his energy hoping for a safe life for Alex.

“No,” Ian muttered to himself. “He had me killed, but it wasn’t him, it was SCORPIA’s man.”

So SCORPIA had killed John and Helen, and then Ian. The board would be delighted if they bothered to care.

“I don’t want to hear about SCORPIA.” John pulled his hand from Helen’s so he could cross his arms and lean back against the couch. He’d spent enough time thinking about SCORPIA on Earth; death could be a respite. “Tell us about our son.”

“Alex is,” Ian began, still half lost in his thoughts, before he stopped.

“Alex is what?” John asked impatiently. _Good? Bright? Funny? Doing well? Those weren’t enough details – John and Helen deserved more._

“In danger!” Ian finished. His eyes were wide now. “Sayle’s going to kill him! He’s going to kill thousands of school children in London with his computers. He has a virus, and SCORPIA is running the operation. It’s in the computers that going out to schools. He must have known I had figured it out, and then he had Gregorovich kill me!”

_Gregorovich?_

_Yassen?_

John remembered Yassen. He’d even thought of him here, once or twice. The kid who’d showed up to SCORPIA without any connections, who hadn’t been able to kill when the situation demanded it, and then had disappeared for a short while only to reappear and be perfectly capable of taking out almost an entire unit in Mdina.

The Yassen John had known couldn’t have killed children – could he?

Don’t get attached. Don’t cling to morality.

It was what John had taught him.

“Ian,” Helen said. She sounded calmer than John knew she had to feel, after hearing her son was in danger. “Tell us everything.”

\--

It seemed like a lifetime ago that Alex had last been on the _Fer de Lance._

_Since he was dead, it had been a lifetime ago._

Anyway, this was only a copy. A façade of the real boat stuck in a place without motion uncaused by the ghosts of dead men.

Alex held the map tightly in his hand. He’d folded it up, hoping a smaller map would be less noticeable and less of a target. Yes, Yassen had returned the map to him once. But one moment could change the man’s mind and then Alex would have _nothing._ No way to figure out how to get to his parents.

_If the map was true. If it was true, and his parents were still there._

If Ash gained control of the gun the map would be destroyed. Ash’s hysterical laughter post-Alex’s revelation revealed how little his godfather thought of the situation. And Ash was dead mainly due to Alex’s intervention in the situation with the Snakehead. Ash would hurt Alex just for revenge if given half a chance.

“Where to, captain?” Ash asked. His sardonic tone implied trouble to come if Yassen so much as looked away from him too long. “We have a map, after all. And what a surprise it was to find out this is all about John Rider.”

“I don’t know that it is. John might have connected the three of us, but there may be other people from our lives out there who have never heard of him.”

“Believe me,” Ash said, “Everyone important in my life seems to have been impressed by the shadow of that man.”

_Was everyone here just because of Alex’s dad? Maybe this whole world wasn’t about people in Alex’s life but those connected to John Rider?_

“Perhaps in your life,” Yassen said.

He also didn’t deny that John Rider had made that strong an impression in his own life, either. Yassen had died talking of how he’d loved John Rider; Alex thought maybe Yassen’s defensiveness had more to do with bothering Ash than anything else.

It was time to change the topic before Yassen decided to be angry that Alex’s dad had betrayed him.

“Shouldn’t we decide what’s happening before we know where to go?” Alex asked.

“What do _you_ think is happening?” Yassen asked, looking to Alex.  
  
Alex didn’t know. But the conversation needed to move from his dad. “The devil hates me,” he responded.  
  
“I’m sure it must seem that way to you.”  
  
“What do you think is happening?” Alex returned.  
  
Yassen considered him while time continued to perhaps continue. “There is a notion of Purgatory.”

“You think we’re there?”

It might make sense. Alex hadn’t been innocent of crimes, not by the end. And yes, almost everything he’d done had been in self-defense or defense of others, but what if that didn’t matter? What if Alex had been more selfish than he’d realized?

_Maybe none of that mattered and Alex was here for stealing candy from the dentist’s office at twelve._

“It’s unlikely,” Yassen dismissed.

“We could be there,” Ash drawled.

_If this was Purgatory and Alex deserved to be there, why were Yassen and Ash not in hell? Those two deserved it. Ergo, this was hell._

Alex voiced his thoughts in the politest way he could offer them. “This could be a punishment.”

Yassen raised an eyebrow. “What have you done to deserve that?”

Ash snorted.

What hadn’t Alex done, if hurting others was wrong?

“You would be a strange candidate for hell,” Yassen said, reading his thoughts. “Not according to many beliefs I’ve heard.”

“Clearly we’re in Heaven, then.”

Alex winced as Yassen told Ash, “I can gag you, if you’re going to continue like this.”

“Alright,” Ash said. “The sarcasm isn’t helping. But neither is talking. Let’s decide on a destination. Or you can let me off this boat, and I’ll leave and never look back. But I think you’re planning to keep me to test uncertain waters, so decide: where are we going? What options are there besides tracking down the family that would probably kill us both?”

“I didn’t kill them,” Yassen said.

“No. You did worse; from what I heard, you sent Alex to SCORPIA.”

Yassen only shrugged. “They would have given him a chance to live longer than he did.”

_Julia Rothman would have killed him at fourteen._

_Best not to say that and rock the – in this case very literal – boat._

“And you think one of MI6’s former agents for Special Operations would agree with that assessment?”

Alex tried desperately not to allow his fear of how this situation would develop to show on his face. He wished he was alone, and knew how to pilot a boat.

He wished that if he needed to die, he could at least be with his family. Even just Ian, as much as Alex had increasingly mixed feelings on Ian’s parenting decisions.

His silence drew Yassen’s attention. The man glanced back at him, unreadable. “Perhaps this is a time for second chances,” Yassen said at last.

Hope that he hadn’t dared to have pushed against his heart. Alex focused on his breathing – inhale, exhale, calm, again. He couldn’t respond in case his flicker of hope was immediately extinguished due to the wrong word.

Ash must have thought this whole thing an elaborate prank, from his sudden laughter.  
  
“Still chasing Hunter? Do you think you’ll get his approval if you bring him his son?”

“I don’t need John’s approval.”

“You’re hoping for a single word of positive attention,” Ash sneered. “You’re an adult pining after the affections of a married man just because he showed some kindness once upon a time. He isn’t going to be who you remember, even if he’s here.”

“No, I doubt it,” Yassen agreed. Far from the annoyed assassin Alex feared, the man might have been amused. “I imagine fourteen years of death will change a man.”

“He’ll kill us, again! Both of us, and Alex will be the only one left in this place.”

“Good for Alex.”

At this Ash turned to Alex. “Alex, you don’t want us to go there. Your father isn’t who you’re expecting to meet, or he won’t be by then. You think a man who works undercover for SCORPIA is _nice?_ You think he’ll be the father of the year, but you’ll watch him kill us both and then you’ll be left alone with a man you don’t even know.”

Alex stared. “You’re the only reason I don’t know him.”

“Alex,” Yassen said, cutting off further conversation. “What do you want to do?”

_It would be irrational and stupid to respond with ‘leave you both and swim the kilometers to find my parents.’_

He took a shaky breath, not due to hesitation. “I want to find my parents.” And he wanted to go to sleep. Another wave of exhaustion was hitting him in full force, and even the importance – the death-altering significance – of the topic at hand wasn’t enough to hold the waves of sleep fully back.

“Then we’ll do that.”

Reluctantly, Alex stepped closer to hand over the map. Yassen took it.

Again, Yassen read his mind. “Go find a room downstairs and rest. I’m going to talk to your godfather alone.”

_Gladly._

Alex escaped through the door to the stairs without protest. He found the first room with a bed, locked the door behind him, and climbed between the sheets. He knew it wasn’t smart, knew he should probably shove a wardrobe between the door and himself, but he was so tired. Already death had proven long enough to need a respite from it.

_To sleep, to dream, to wake in another world._

_Wouldn’t that be nice._

The darkness was a welcome break, and Alex’s subconscious leapt towards it without pause. And all along, the beeping, ever present, continued to exist.

_“I’m so sorry,”_ _a familiar American voice said hoarsely, as if she’d been crying a long time. “I shouldn’t have answered the door. I’m so sorry.”_

\--

The dawn of death signaled the way, and the _Fer de Lance_ crept onwards through a water that only moved when the ship sailed through it. This reality was impossible. No natural or unnatural beast of land or water roamed, at least not that could be seen.

Ash had, on some level - when he’d thought of it at all - expected nothing after death. If he had been a hell-fearing lad, he never would have led his life in the ways that he had. Apparently, he should have feared hell. Because it was real, and he was here.

Rope bound his hands together behind his back, and the weight to his feet. If he was pushed overboard, he would sink. And in this first ring of torment, who knew if he would die again or if he would just drown, perpetually in agony as he struggled for air that would never arrive, forever?

_That_ had been his captor’s threat.

It hadn’t been enough to stop his words with a gag. Gregorovich had deemed him poisonous enough to the child’s mind that if Ash so much as indicated to Alex that there was trouble then he would find himself in a watery grave, a drowned offering to whatever deities oversaw this place.

The task was easy enough. Ash was gagged, bound, and weighted in place. Alex passed by occasionally, staring at Ash each time as if he were tempted to free him, or at least his mouth. Each time the temptation must have passed, as the child promptly disappeared back below the bridge, leaving Ash and Gregorovich alone together again.

Much like any prison, the torment wasn’t the confines of the space, but the boredom.

Things never changed.

However long it had been, Ash never grew hungry. Never needed to sleep, not even the ruined version that had passed as sleep in Ash’s life. And at least there was also never pain – only two pills had been enough to take care of that. Even the sun didn’t rise or lighten the skies more than previous moments.

Nothing changed.

Alex needed to sleep, that much was clear. Ash wasn’t keeping track, but in a brief visit to the bridge the child had confessed to napping at least seven times.

Conversation would have distracted Ash. Even threats from Gregorovich could pass the time, but the Russian was as uninterested in talking to Ash as he was in more threats. The man steered the boat or wrote in a notebook he’d found, and five or six times he’d exchanged brief words with Alex, but those were of no more substance than what they’d already discovered: this place made little sense.

_Ba’ad az ar tariki, roshani ast._ An Afghan proverb: After every darkness, there is light.

Ash had clung to it on more than one occasion. He’d even taught it to Alex, in his one act of dispensing Godfatherly wisdom, after failing to dissuade Alex from taking on the mission with ASIS that had led to Ash’s own death.

Ash had to believe this was the darkness, and there would still yet be light.

Elsewise, there was only _this_.

The dawn of death kept them on course, and the _Fer de Lance_ crept silently onwards.

\--

Alex had spent most of their time on the ship so far in the room with the comfortable bed under the bridge. There were books in this room – pulp detective stories in French, all – that he could distract himself with. There was a bed to sleep in when he was tired. And, most importantly, he was hidden from sight and couldn’t annoy Yassen to the point where the man decided to change course for different unseen lands. So it was by sheer coincidence that one of the few times Alex visited the bridge was when they first spotted land on the horizon.

_Coincidence was a lie; fate perhaps more so._

“Alex,” Yassen said, nodding off in the distance. “That will be the next island, if the map is correct.”

The strip of grey on the horizon became larger in time. Alex had settled on the back couch as far away as he could from Ash. “Are we stopping there?” Alex asked as they began to make out the jagged outlines of tall trees along the shore.

“Not unless there’s a reason. We’ll sail around it, but stay close to the shore.”

Alex wondered what constituted a reason to stop. Guiltily, his eyes slid to Ash as he considered who would be the first onto the island if something enticing was offered. His godfather stared back, eyes hard.

“What if we stopped, and Ash got out?” Alex asked.

He hadn’t meant to voice the question. Not bothering Yassen was the entire game Alex had been playing on the _Fer de Lance._

“No,” Yassen responded without thought.

“Why not?”

“Trouble is not stopped by inviting more in.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, we seem to be as safe as we can be right now. Why would we invite trouble by releasing someone with a grudge against us both free? What if your family is on that island, and Ash finds them and causes problems while we look elsewhere?” Yassen continued.

Alex hadn’t thought of that possibility.

Ash grunted into the cloth in his mouth, but neither Alex nor Yassen moved to undo the gag.

For at least the moment, Ash was stuck with them.

_And they were stuck with Ash._

Soon they were close to the island – this one, seemingly uncluttered with discarded remnants of wrecked items. Alex stared into the forest as the ship moved around the partial perimeter of the island. Some repetitive quality seemed imbued in the trees of the forest. Alex found himself thinking they were passing trees they had already seen, although the ship continued in one direction along the coast.

Ash grunted, and then again. “Is this important?” Yassen asked. Ash jerked his head forward. Alex followed the direction his godfather was looking in, and spotted the concern.

“There’s smoke!”

Off in the distance, a wisp of smoke curled above the trees.

Yassen stopped the boat’s engine.

The anomalous natural quiet of the world took over again, to the point where Alex could hear himself breath.

“There will be no problems,” Yassen warned, before striding to Ash and undoing the gag.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” his godfather promised in an unkind tone.

_How did someone dream without sleep?_

“We should get closer,” Alex suggested. “If it doesn’t seem ominous, and there’s a dock, we should see if we know them?”

“Avoid them if there are heads on pikes then?” Ash asked sardonically. “How do we know they don’t mean us harm even without that?”

“I don’t know, but we should try it. Maybe they’ll know what’s going on, whoever’s there.”

_My parents could be there._

Yassen, to Alex’s surprise, seemed roughly of a similar mind. “If there’s a dock and no concerning signs, we can stop.”

“Alright. Let’s do it then,” Alex rushed to agree.

Yassen started the engine again, and they continued.

There was a dock by the source of the smoke, although trees concealed the source itself. No one was about. Yassen pulled the ship into the dock, and then went out to secure the _Fer de Lance_ in place, although not before gagging Ash again, despite the man’s mutinous glare.

The conversation that followed wasn’t long, and was entirely directed by Yassen. Ash and Yassen were going to see what they could find. Alex was instructed to stay with the yacht. If there were problems, Alex should find a place to hide. And then Yassen and Ash left, leaving Alex alone in an underworld where at least two of its denizens were hardened criminals.

Alex watched the forest, lost in thoughts and apprehensions and doubts.

_Was it better to be alone or surrounded by criminals?_

_Would he ever see another dead soul again?_

And still, somehow: _Was any of this more than an elaborate dream?_

(Although the last he had all but dismissed as an idle passing thought that would disappear in time).

Alex counted seconds, then minutes. He watched the trees and their shadows.

The water was still.

Above, the pink and orange and yellow hues of the cloudless sky faded into the purple of near night. Alex almost thought he saw the faint outline of a translucent moon.

And no one came back.

_Soundless dark with interrupting beeping –_

Alex awoke with a start. He couldn’t find the source of sudden alertness; nothing appeared to be about. There weren’t even birds in this world, after all. At least, none that Alex had seen.

He stood, waking himself, as he peered into the forest. No, there was nothing. No one.

_He’d been alone too long._

There was only one choice, if Alex wanted to find his parents. He couldn’t pilot a boat by himself, and he – fool that he was, he realized now – hadn’t asked Yassen to teach him. He needed them, or at least Yassen, alive – _well, alert_ – enough to get him to the destination.

Alex set out into the forest, but not before finding a wrench in a closet to use as a weapon if needed.

It was surreal now to walk amongst sand that wasn’t scattered with the odd remains of a life. The first time Alex stepped on a rock as he neared the forest, he looked down expecting to see a doorknob or other useless trinket. But apparently the beaches in death weren’t as consistent as that expectation.

The mansion snuck up on Alex. He was walking through the forest, looking around warily, when suddenly – through the trees – he could see a precisely manicured hedge half hiding a two-story mansion house. Still, though, no one was obviously around. It was too dark in the forest to see if anyone was standing behind windows, looking back at out him.

Yassen would have come back without danger, right? He’d said he’d get Alex to his parents.

_Never in those words, but it was the implied expectation._

Unless Ash had gotten the gun after all. Yassen could be lying bleeding out, or dead again, in these woods.

Alex snuck to and then around the hedge, looking for an entrance. It didn’t take long. Only moments, and then Alex was confronted with the first dead soul he’d seen besides Yassen and Ash. The first dead soul that he didn’t already know.

The short, overweight man standing at the break in the hedge saw Alex right as Alex saw him. The two stared at each other silently. Slowly, Alex raised a hand in greeting. The man returned the half wave, his face unreadable.

Reddening, Alex dropped the wrench in his hand. It would be ridiculous, walking forward with a wrench in hand, if he wanted to try a peaceful arrival.

“Hi,” he said awkwardly. “Do you speak English?”

The man gestured Alex forward. Alex approached, ready to leap back at a moment’s notice.

There seemed to be no need. The portly man, after Alex closed the gap to the break in the hedge, turned and walked towards the door to the manor. He looked back to ensure Alex was following.

Seeing no other clear route to take, Alex followed.

On the grass filled lawn between the hedge and manor house, two or three men were pulling weeds. Only one glanced up at Alex, and he glanced down as soon as he noticed Alex watching him.

The manor was styled like a small manor house in the English countryside. It was made of tan brick, with tall windows and a slate roof.

The man Alex was following opened the door, and waved for Alex to walk inside.

Alex did, and the door was shut behind him. He was in a small foyer, with stairs in front of him, and on either side of the foyer, an elaborate wooden archway leading to a different room. English paintings decorated the foyer.

“In here,” Ash called. His voice had an odd quality to it. Alex looked through the archway on his right to see his godfather, sitting in an armchair, a glass of wine in his right hand. Ash was pale. “I told you he’d come,” Ash muttered, almost defensively.

Alex stepped through the archway, and froze.

Yassen was sitting in another armchair, himself holding a glass of wine. He was avoiding Alex’s eyes. Two men Alex had never seen before stood along the wall, each of them with a gun in their hand.

And on a couch against the back wall of the living room, clutching his gloved hands together, was Major Winston Yu.

“Alex,” he said. “I can’t tell you how badly I’ve wanted to see you again. Do come in. I think we have a lot of time ahead of us, and I can’t wait to tell you how it’s going to be spent.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Sit there,” Yu said, nodding towards a third chair. “We have much to discuss before I make an example out of you.”

_Another discussion over how Alex was going to be hurt terribly; when had death become so much like life?_

“I don’t have anything to say to you.”

“While that is a shame, you can always listen. Sit.”

One of the men against the wall pointed his gun at Alex. Deciding it would be better to fight later, Alex went to take the third armchair.

“Have you discovered the nature of this place?” Yu asked.

_The nature of Alex’s life towards the end had been suffering so others didn’t; death’s nature hadn’t yet proven it was completely better. Although if the promise of Alex’s parents was real then this could yet be all worth it._

Alex shook his head.

“No,” Yu mused. “Your companions hadn’t either. Although Ash seemed to think he was here because hell was real, according to his mutterings. Which is interesting. I don’t know if I’d call the place that healed me _hell._ ”

“I don’t think this is hell.”

_Not fully._

Yu smiled. “You are correct. This isn’t hell. This is the place for vengeance.”

Vengeance. Why did Alex feel such terror hearing the word?

_If vengeance was the object, was Alex here only for others to hurt? He didn’t want vengeance for himself – there had been enough in life._

“Who told you that?” Alex asked, bold despite his fear. “Was there an angel of death that was here before I arrived?”

“No, there was nothing like that. But it doesn’t change this place. I will tell you how I know that we are here for retribution, and nothing more. After all, what else is there to do here besides talk? Well, there is more, but we will get to that soon. Believe me, Alex, you will prefer our story time.”

“I didn’t always like story time in school. Is your story more entertaining?”

Yu laughed. “Always so smart. You could be your father, from what I’ve heard of the man.”

Again, there was talk of John Rider. Unbidden, Alex’s gaze jumped to Yassen and then to Ash. Did Yu know who they had been attempting to sail to?

“There are similarities,” Yassen agreed.

“I’m sure many of my friends had their chance to enact vengeance on your father, young Alex, don’t worry,” the major said. “But on to the story. I will begin with how I arrived here. It’s quite different to your story, but everyone I talk to has their own origin to this place. You three woke in a locked room on a beach a boat trip away from here, which I will say is one of the more interesting stories I’ve heard. I woke on a beach as well. The beach your ship is docked to, in fact.”

Yu tended to tell his life story while monologuing, as Alex had learned in life. But if Yu’s death story could give Alex some clues as to the nature of this place – this place of vengeance, supposedly – then he would listen.

“At first I didn’t understand. I thought I had passed out after reaching my destination, after I’d left you, Alex, along with Ash’s body back on the ship. And then the memory came to me, brief thought it was, of my body shattering as a shock wave kill me. It wasn’t a pleasant death! And I knew you were responsible.”

“It must have been shocking to realize you were dead,” Alex responded.

Yu’s gaze sharpened. “Cute.”

On his left, Ash flinched.

“I’ll continue, although do feel free to keep interrupting. I’ll get repayment for each remark later. As I was saying, I woke on a beach. There was no one around, and I had realized I was dead. I knew there was no point staying there. I assumed if some purpose to this place was to be found then I would need to find it. And I did, after a long time of walking in the woods. I found this estate – my estate! An exact copy of the home I had build outside of a little English town, although I never got to spend much time there. It didn’t belong in a forest. And then I went inside and found one of my previous lieutenants sitting behind my desk in my office, with his feet on my desk. When I tell you I was disgusted, you have no idea.”

_Alex wasn’t sure – he’d met Yu and that was disgusting enough._

He kept that thought inside his head. The promise of ‘repayment’ owed to Yu for each remark was suitably sinister to at least limit his outer dialogue to the best quips.

“I managed to kill him by throwing a bust of Winston Churchill at his head. Did you know that people can die in the afterlife, Alex? I was telling Yassen and Ash, and they seemed surprised. I wonder what happens if you die in this place. Is there a deeper afterlife, or are they finally gone? It’s no matter. I don’t intend to join my lieutenant anytime soon.”

_Few people ever intended to die, let alone die twice._

“There are wonders in this place, as Ash has realized. He told me that a few pills were enough to cure the pain he’d been inflicted with since Yassen here injured him so grievously. And my bones, although you wouldn’t know by looking at me, no longer break quite so easily. There are other wonders too. After I disposed of the lieutenant that had usurped my estate, I ran into more men. Men, and a few women, that I had angered, or who had angered me. Several of whom I had killed, or had killed on my behalf. The wonder of this place, I realized, is that this is a second chance to exact vengeance on those who have committed crimes against you. A chance to heal while hurting others. You see, Alex, I have been expecting you. This is a place for vengeance, and who else do I owe vengeance to, but the one who put me here? A fact that I think bonds your two companions and myself. I’m delighted they haven’t killed you by now, although I have wondered why not.”

“Alex is young and scared,” Yassen said, sounding bored. “He has listened to me, and was someone who could stay with the ship while we explored. Why would I kill him?”

Ash, under Alex’s stare, didn’t protest Yassen’s lie.

“And you’re not worried that Ash and Alex will team up to hurt you? They’d both have reason.” Yu looked at Ash then and laughed. “I suppose not. Alex can’t trust his godfather anymore, now, can he?”

Yassen shrugged, then took another drink of wine.

_Alex hadn’t seen food or drink since the potentially poisoned apple in the room._

“Where did you get the wine?” Alex asked.

“Ask in this place, and the object you desire will appear,” Yu dismissed. “It even works with people, I believe, as I asked to hurt you and here you are, lagging behind this reluctant team who delivered you.”

Yassen and Ash weren’t a team anymore than the US and USSR had been in the Cold War. But Alex could guess why Ash had gone along with the lie that Yassen must have come up with to hide the fact that he was armed and holding Ash at gunpoint. Ash had failed Major Yu in life, and the Major clearly was intent on retribution. The afterlife must be easier with a threatening assassin than with a violent and angered megalomaniac.

Major Yu must not know that they were trying to find his parents, either.

 _How terrible would Alex’s fate be with such a man, if Ash preferred to stay with_ Yassen _over Yu?_

Alex already knew what sort of fate he expected. Yu was the man who had sent him to be butchered for parts, in life.

_If the organ harvesting had won – if Alex hadn’t escaped by impromptu raft – would Alex have woken in this place without eyes?_

_The nightmare grew worse; this was a place not for vengeance but fear._

“Shall we discuss what I’m going to do to you?” Yu asked.

Alex was desperate to avoid that discussion. Even more than his fear of the topic, though, was a desire to find out more about this realm of impossible possibilities, where wine appeared if you only asked the windless air. “Wait! I have a question.”

“Go ahead and ask. We have time.”

“You said people kept appearing. People who didn’t like you. How are you still here?”

Yu’s ever-present leer continued. The major’s fantastically twisted yet calm demeanor exuded a presence more so than in life. “Did you think I became the head of the Snakehead on accident? I can tell you didn’t pay attention to my earlier lecture. Perhaps if you had been older when we’d met, you would have understood the value of hearing me talk and you would have listened closely. Alas, we met when you were so young. Did you die when I did?”

“No.”

“But you were killed soon after. SCORPIA doesn’t forget, and their forgiveness comes at the price of a life lost.”

Alex couldn’t remember dying, but Yu’s words felt _wrong._ Ironic. Lacking truth.

_A scorpion, crushed underfoot in the Egyptian desert, posed no new danger to a child living a continent away._

“I guess,” Alex settled on.

“You don’t remember dying? That has happened to some. A bullet from a sniper would be my guess; there is no time for you to notice the danger and store the memory.”

“He doesn’t remember dying,” Ash confirmed, bitter.

“Regardless. He is still dead. And unlikely to be free of my grasp soon, to return to the point. You see, Alex, this is a place of vengeance, but not every desire for vengeance is equal. I have needed to hurt many people. I have hurt others because I wanted to. And with each person who sent some injury or insult my way, I remembered, and my desire to exact punishment grew stronger. And on top of that, I know every person who turns up here. They do not. They do not all like each other. They, often, do not speak the language of the others. I spoke with each, in their language, and promised them what should happen should they anger me and fail to kill me. I have told them of the character of the other people working for here. So, they are turned against each other. They don’t like me, but they fear what will happen should I die. I am offering leniency and eventual freedom to roam this afterlife if they serve me well, and whatever man killed me and became their new master may not be so kind.”

“You killed them all! How can you trust them, knowing that they all hate you?”

Yu scoffed. “You are young and naïve. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear you didn’t know the principles of Machiavelli. He was an Italian man with several thoughts on the nature of governance. Allow me to offer you a quote I find wise: ‘It is much safer to be feared than loved.’ Machiavelli explains that love is often ignored by men seeking their own advantage, but the dread of punishment promises men – and women, of course – who will remain loyal. I made examples of those I knew would not be easily cowed, and their agonizing end assured me an allegiance from those that remained that is not easily broken.”

Alex wanted to tell Yu that he deserved hell, but possibly they were already there. And Yu had managed to take it over.

“I can see you are picturing what I did to my examples,” Yu, wrongly, noted. “If you are smart, you’ve realized you will join them soon.”

_If Alex was smart, he would have seen an ominous estate hidden in the woods and run far, far, far away._

“He’s young,” Ash objected. “And he died young. That’s enough. Shoot him and be done with it.”

Alex hadn’t realized Ash hated him that much.

Yu, however, laughed pleasantly. “Have you finally decided to be a godfather, Ash? You want to spare him some pain? Worry not. If you cause problems, then there will be pain enough to spare.”

_This was what it came down to: his godfather thought a quick re-death was to be spared._

“So how about you, Yassen?” Yu asked. “Hunter’s protégé, the fearsome Cossack. Do you want me to shoot Alex to lend him the peaceful exit out of my domain? Or would you prefer to join me and exact your vengeance on the son of your betrayer?”

Shrugging, Yassen replied, “Whatever you prefer.”

“I will tell you what I prefer.”

“There’s no need,” Alex interrupted, disguising his horrifying urge to hear his fate. “I’m sure it’s less painful that hearing you talk.”

“Alex,” Ash pleaded. “Stop.”

Yassen tilted his head at that, although he only responded to Alex’s desperate glance by taking another long sip of wine.

“You will discover when I slap you later, that these gloves are now only ornamental. I will no longer break my bones just by inflicting well deserved pain on you. And I think we shall get down to the details now. Alex, you cost my enterprises quite a fee in life, and then you took the reckless initiative to cost me the most precious of my possessions: my life. This does not merit a quick death. And I’ll confess I’ve been getting bored in my afterlife. You will be here for a long time yet. We will get to know each other quite well. Now, can you tell me how my hospital was, while you were there?”

Alex had the sensation that he could be sick if there was anything in his stomach.

“Everyone was nice,” he managed.

“I wouldn’t have guessed, with how you treated my employees on your way out. But do tell, what was the first part of your body they were going to sell, to help recoup my losses?”

“My kidney.”

“No,” Yu chided, “That’s not correct. Don’t think I wasn’t paying attention, on Earth. And I don’t think you’ve forgotten. Be honest now.”

_An utter and complete desire to scream consumed him, the panic stopping him from screaming and making a run for the door. Being shot in failed escape was a better fate than whatever Yu offered._

_This was not hell but something much, much worse._

Every villain Alex had faced melded into one when they taunted him. It was always the same smile on the face of such villains when they told their plans. Yu’s taunt was Cray’s taunt was Sarov’s delight was Grief’s sick fantasy of tearing him into pieces.

“I’ll be generous. I’ll let you keep your eyes for the first while,” Yu said. “In time you will thank me, between your cries. And I want to see the fear in your eyes when you watch my revenge unfold.”

Alex would never thank Yu.

“We are here for endless time, so we’ll start with small things. A broken bone. A cut that can be stitched up. You all may not have noticed yet but blood flows slower here. We can take our time to let you hurt before you’re repaired. I’ll order my whipping post put back up; it’s a very English punishment, after all. A fitting pain.”

Yu paused, staring at Alex greedily while Alex tried to mirror Yassen’s emotionless demeanor.

_In a just afterlife Yassen should still see bringing Alex to his parents as an opportunity for second chances. The Russian would stop this._

“Then we’ll move to the hurts you can’t recover from, and believe me I’ve tried these things enough to know there are injuries even wishing on the afterlife won’t recover you from.” The major tapped near his eyes. “But I’ll leave some to your imagination.”

“Major Yu,” Yassen said.

Yu sat back, as if disappointed to be interrupted mid-monologue. His shark-like gaze moved to Yassen. “Yes?”

“It sounds as if you will be occupied with Alex’s punishment for a while.”

“I will be,” Yu agreed.

“Yes. But I’m not sure I’m needed.”

A wash of cold fear ran through Alex, leaving him to shiver in the otherwise pleasantly comfortable air. What did that mean?

Ash’s widening eyes implied his godfather knew exactly what it meant.

There was a silent eternity.

“No.” Yu’s words brought small nails into Alex’s heart. “Ash owes me his service, in exchange for failing me in life. And you did fail SCORPIA, Yassen. Make no mistake. But it was not a failure against me, specifically.”

Yassen stood, after placing his now empty wine glass on the small table beside the armchair. “Then I can assume no one will follow me when I leave?”

“It would be a waste of a perfectly good servant. Although if you reappear without good reason, I’ll let Ash loose on you. We can try a round two of your first encounter.”

“Understood.”

“Stay in my good graces when you leave,” Yu said. “I am, as it turns out, quite the god of this island.”

Yassen inclined his head at Yu before he left, his soft footsteps echoing loudly in Alex’s head.

_Why had Alex believed good of anyone in this place? Assassins, unlike in books, had no private code of ethics. Morality was for those who lived long lives away from the intelligence and criminal worlds._

Yu reached for the cane he must no longer need to stand, and pulled himself off his couch. “Shall we get started?”

\--

Once upon a bygone life, John Rider had met a young man from Russia. He’d, not that privately, been fond of him. Had even considered revealing the truth of his employment and converting the young man, until his true bosses rejected the idea.

In those same now fading memories, Hunter had met that same man and taught him to survive through a series of increasingly harsh lessons. Hunter privately rejoiced that Cossack’s presence taunted MI6 in the present, for MI6 deserved to lose men to the boy they’d rejected. They even deserved to lose Hunter's brother.

Ian had finished sharing his most recent memories, and the room was silent except for the hushed whispers of the previous conversation screaming their presence in the room.

_\- SCORPIA – A virus – Yassen – children – schoolchildren, the age of John’s child – killed for a grudge – Sayle – Alex – MI6 didn’t know – Ian hadn’t had time to tell them – computers – they would be dead in minutes - **Alex** -_

John Rider had joined SCORPIA to help destroy the organization, and fourteen years later they not only existed but _thrived,_ profiteering off the death of children in an operation so much worse than any proposed during John’s time undercover.

“Alex needed you,” John said, breaking the loud silence. “ _My son_ needed you and you failed.”

“John,” Helen interrupted.

There was no stopping the cold anger curling inside him. Ian had been a fool as a young man, and now he was a decade older than John. “You put _your nephew_ in danger so you could continue your life of action and adventure with MI6, and the time your operation impacted my son you let yourself be killed. Did you think you were James Bond? You had a child to watch!”

_John and Helen’s child, at that, not Ian’s._

“I took care of Alex,” Ian objected, his face the picture of befuddled innocence. “I taught him what he needed to survive.”

_To survive? Alex was fourteen, not a bloody secret agent._

“He was _in danger_ because of you.” John managed to sound calmer than he felt, although he knew the fury behind his words was clear. Helen was pale, glancing between the brothers.

“I –“

“Get out.”

Ian stared.

“Now.” John had become Hunter, and if any concept of safety prevailed in his brother’s head, Ian would leave.

His brother hesitated.

Helen stood, reaching for Ian’s arm.

“Before I find out what happens to those hurt here,” Hunter promised, and Ian, pale, left for the door with Helen beside him.

Keeping Ian away wouldn’t last long, John knew already. Ian was their one connection to their son, and even if Hunter could live without the man’s memories to save Helen the sight of violence, Helen couldn’t.

Yassen Gregorovich. Ian Rider. MI6. SCORPIA. None of those impacted by John’s live had turned out as John had hoped. _Although at least one had succeeded in fulfilling Hunter’s vision._

He would have to pray that Alex – the one person John’s live should have impacted, but didn’t – could at least, without an uncle actively working for MI6, live a life worthy of Helen and John’s hopes.

Assuming Sayle’s virus didn’t kill him first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise, Yu monologued for less time than he monologued in the book.


	5. Chapter 5

Alex stood on the steps to Yu’s manor and tried to ignore the sounds of Yu’s monologue in the background. Ash, standing beside him with a green expression, might have been doing the same.

“This place changes if you only ask,” Major Yu said, tapping the stone steps with his cane. “I didn’t have enough work for my servants because nothing grew here, until I demanded that the weeds resume their meddlesome schedule. Now I can keep men out here weeding until they can barely stand, their back is in such pain.”

Men had been weeding when Alex had arrived at the manor, but now the action had ceased. Instead, several servants were digging a hole in the ground while, just outside the hedge of the manor, two men were chopping a smaller tree down into a post.

A whipping post was being created for Alex, as he stood and watched and heard Yu gloat about his coming torture. Alex was trying not to shake. He had seen re-enactments of a whipping in a BBC documentary about sailors when he was young, and the images had stayed with him since.

“Are you listening, Alex?” Yu asked.

“I try not to.”

“Maybe I’ll have you listen to me between strokes of the whip. I can give you a quiz, of sorts. A stroke for each correct answer – two for each wrong one.”

“If you want.”

_A teacher wouldn’t be so cruel, but Yu wasn’t a teacher. This wasn’t a punishment to correct, but a torture inflicted to right a wrong._

“You should feel honored,” Yu continued. “I had another whipping post, but my servants can’t find it. Likely because I had the servant who put it away shot for breaking my favorite teacup. Which was a shame. I had it – or it’s original, I should say – made for me by an English woman who painted gorgeous designs, and now I'll never have another.”

“I bet that broke your heart.”

“Quite. But I think I’ll take a lie down, and a read a book, while we wait for this to be ready. I’ll be back soon,” Yu promised. “Ash and Zhen, stay here and keep an eye on Alex. I want him to watch. Zhen, if Ash causes problems, shoot him in the leg. If Alex tries to cause a problem, Ash, I’ll assume you can stop him, before I decide to punish you as well.”

The post was constructed slowly. Zhen, one of Yu's guards, kept a watchful eye on Alex. Not wanting trouble, Alex watched the entire process, hating himself for it all the while. The post was struck into the hole dug in the earth –

_Earth was the name of dirt on Earth; was it the name of the dirt here as well? –_

And the hole was closed in around it. When servants came out with strips of leather and nails, handholds were hammered into the post, near the top.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Ash muttered, before Yu returned out of the house with an entourage of his servants.

_Ash was right. Death was supposed to be peaceful. A time to sleep forever, or hug loved ones. Not this. Never this._

Two men, one short and one tall, man carried an armchair between them. They placed it on the ground near the steps, and Yu took a seat. Another servant followed and placed a table onto the ground, precariously balancing a glass on wine on top of it all the while.

“The time of reckoning is here,” Yu announced. “Alex, Take your shirt off.”

Alex stared.

“Ash, rip it off him if you need to. You’ll be the one I have whipped next if Alex isn’t ready to begin the show in a minute.”

_What were minutes when time didn’t exist._

Alex, reluctantly and slowly, took his shirt off.

Yu smirked at the scars littering his chest. “Quite the collection.”

Ash averted his eyes from Alex’s bare chest.

“Tie his hands to the post,” Yu ordered.

A rope was pressed into Ash’s hand from another servant. Ash hesitated, looking across the lawn at the post.

It wouldn’t do any good to show fear. Alex took a deep breath, shaky though it was, and took a step into the grass. Ash followed.

The walk across the grass hammered nails of anticipation into his chest. The eyes of at least ten servants, two guards, and Yu himself didn’t lesson the fear.

_At least Alex’s pain would entertain the crowd._

The audience must be here to have the fear of Yu pounded into them –this was what the man aimed for - keeping his people in line through frequent examples of his injustices.

Ash wound one end of the rope around Alex’s left wrist. The knot that closed the loop was loose enough that Alex could escape it in minutes, if left alone to wriggle out of it. Ash pulled the rope through the first leather strap in the post, pulling Alex’s arm up with it. “Raise your arm,” Ash instructed lowly once he’d wound the end of the rope through the second leather strap. Alex raised his arm. Again, Ash closed the rope around Alex’s wrist. The end of the rope dangled down once Alex’s right wrist was loosely tied, leaving him tied to the post, his back exposed to the open air.

“Hold the straps,” Ash muttered.

Alex glared into the wood.

Ash must have guessed that his words had been perceived as a threat. “Holding something will help the pain.”

Reluctantly, Alex maneuvered his hands within the ropes to clutch at the straps.

“Ash,” Yu called, from his vantage point near the front of the manor. “I have another gift for you. The chance to teach your godson a lesson in vengeance.”

Alex struggled to turn his head, scraping his chin against the post as he did so. The same short man who had carried the armchair out was now holding out, extended in his arm, a whip.

_Fear wasn’t turning his legs to jelly._

_Fear was whispering in his ears that soon, his legs would be jelly, weak from holding him up, as he buckled against the post and tears slid down his face._

The almost night and barely morn sky above was too calm for the day – night – dawn – whatever. Alex turned his head again, this time away from Yu. He wasn’t going to let the man see him cry.

Soft footsteps announced that Ash was behind him.

"A toast," Alex heard Yu say. "To the retributions I missed in life. To an afterlife full of possibilities. To _vengeance_." There was only a short because because Yu's voice was taunting Alex again. "Ash. Begin, if you would please."

“I’m sorry, Alex,” Ash whispered. Alex tensed, his body held in place against the post. He closed his eyes.

In the first second after the burst of fire, Alex thought his back was aflame from the crack of a whip. But it was only his imagination.

“You left,” Ash gasped behind Alex.

“Free him,” a voice ordered from the manor.

Yassen.

Alex’s eyes flew open. He pulled away from the post, jerking back as far as he could, and looked towards Yu.

The man’s body was slumped in the armchair.

His two guards had fallen onto the freshly weeded grass beside him.

The servants held themselves motionless, some with arms raised, all gaping at the man in the doorway, aiming a machine gun at them.

“Ash,” Yassen said. “ _Now.”_

The whip was dropped to the ground behind Alex as Ash rushed forward, his trembling fingers pulling at the knots he’d tied moments ago.

Yassen, in a language Alex didn’t understand, began to speak, quickly, with the assembled captive audience. Quiet met his words, although two of the servants, hesitantly nodded.

The moment Alex was freed, he rushed towards the stairs, reaching for his shirt. Yassen glanced sidelong at him and took a few steps forward. Alex tugged his shirt back on. His hands were beginning to still instead of shake.

Yassen stopped talking, his weapon kept aimed steadily at Yu’s victims. He took a few steps forward, off the steps. “Ash, Alex. We’re leaving.”

\--

Julia Rothman woke from death, in the middle of the woods, with her head resting on a wooden platform. On and around the platform, crushed metal boxes and cables lay scattered erratically. Julia recognized what the machinery must be instantly. These were the satellite dishes that would shoot the terahertz beams into the children of London, killing them all, and bring Julia’s plan _Invisible Sword_ into fruition.

Except…except…as her memories returned, as she remembered firing into a guard’s chest, and fleeing the church from where she’d watched the balloon that had carried this platform ascend, as she remembered the heavy shock of gravity pummeling her with a mammoth and heavy object from above…as she remembered all of this, she remembered that her operation had failed.

Alex Rider.

He had escaped her and gotten onto the hot air balloon.

Nile had failed her. 

Julia felt a rage that she hadn’t needed to access in years boiling within in as she looked around the small, dimly lit clearing where she had awoken in. She didn’t believe in heaven or hell, and didn’t think for an instant that this was either place. Hell, as described by those in the religion of her grandfather, was not a forest where your failures lay. Heaven would never allow her in.

Rage fueled her as she walked, knowing nothing else to do, in a direction chosen at random. Wisdom might dictate that she stayed still and examine this place meter by meter, but she was a woman of action, and a woman who did not tolerate failure.

Randomness as a word, also, incorrectly attributed to her that she was walking aimlessly. She was not. She was walking towards her future in an unknown world, whichever future it was. She would control it. She had worked her way into success young in life, and she could shape the afterlife as well.

Woods continued for a time, and the light above grew no brighter. Shadows must have menaced away the small creatures and bugs native to a forest, or they had never been there to begin with.

Finally, the woods began to thin, and the dirt underneath her heels – once well-polished but now seemingly dull amidst the darkness of her surroundings and clung to by dirt – became sandy and grit. 

Julia expected the beach before she saw it, the colors of almost-morning breaking through the trees on the horizon. When she broke through the trees and found herself on a beach, near a dock and cabin, she stopped only a moment to examine the sight.

The world was still and quiet.

Even the cabin produced no light and emitted no noises. If someone was inside, they must be asleep.

All the better for her. If the cabin was as normal inside as it appeared from the exterior, inside would be a kitchen, and she would soon have a knife. She could seek answers then from anyone inside, or slit their throat if they appeared a bother.

The cabin door was unlocked. Julia opened it, silent as the world, and slipped inside.

Immediately it was apparent that this was no normal cabin.

The interior walls of the main room she found herself in was decorated in swords, decorative and functional, Asian and European, elaborate and simple.

There was only one man who Julia knew that would adore such a cabin.

Well, perhaps that was a lie. There were many men Julia knew – and some women, as well – who would happily kill for the possession of such a treasured and simplistic cabin. But this would be heaven for one man, above all.

She gripped the handle of the nearest slender sword – almost a rapier in design – and removed it from its placement on the wall.

Nile, as had happened once or twice in life, surprised her with his entrance. “Mrs. Rothman,” he murmured, from the doorway to the cabin. He didn’t touch the sword at his hip, but he had no need of that action. Between the two of them, they both knew who the master swordsman was.

“You failed me.”

“I paid for the mistake,” he replied. “And ended up here. I haven’t decided if it’s heaven yet, but I haven’t been here long.”

“How long?” Nile must have died near the same time as Julia had been killed, although he had no way to know that.

He frowned. “I don’t know. A few hours? The sun hasn’t moved, outside in the sky. I’m not tired yet.”

“Tell me everything.”

“There isn’t much to tell,” Nile admitted. “I was in this room when I came to, and I walked around outside a bit and saw no one, until you appeared.”

“You saw me?”

“I was expecting you, and then I saw you from the window. I snuck out the back to follow you in.” He smiled, vicious. “Better the hunter than the prey, I say.”

He was expecting her? Julia couldn’t say the same for him. Although once she’d seen this place, she’d known who it belonged to. “This cabin was meant for you.” She had no doubts about it. If this was Nile’s gift from this place, what was meant for her? The platform that she was beginning to realize - if her last memory was true - had crushed her from above was hardly as fitting a tribute to her life as this cabin was to Nile’s. 

“Perhaps,” Nile all but purred. “But there’s a gift for you as well, if you want it.”

Julia raised an eyebrow. Her reflection bounced of a dozen swords that were broad and polished enough to reflect her distorted vision.

“I think you will want to look at this for yourself.” Nile nodded at a door set into the side of the room. “On the table.”

The map on the dining table was of a green island surrounded by blue. Julia picked it up. She noticed Nile’s cabin at once, as a bright red circle was on the map on the western beach, and beside the circle was labelled just the word ‘Nile’.

“Look closely,” Nile said, with a smile wide as a Cheshire’s.

Julia’s name was on the map as well. It was written in red on an edge of the forest close to the beach with Nile’s cabin.

Her eyes roamed the map. According to the key, the island was large, and she expected it would take days to travel across it if starting at the most western point, which they were close to, and traveling to the most eastern point.

A frown pulled at her lips. There – just there, right below the most eastern point, there were words in green, almost blending into the forest. No. Not words. There were _names._

Julia’s frown disappeared, and in its place grew the start of smile.

Alex Rider may, with the boy’s cursed luck, still be alive. Although even that she wasn’t certain of. She would have to ask Nile how the moment of his death had occurred to know more.

But John Rider was dead. There had been no doubt in her mind about it before, and now the certainty was cemented.

On the eastern edge of the map, in small, handwritten green letters, were three names: John Rider. Helen Rider. Ian Rider.

“Nile,” Julia said. “For once, you might not be a disappointment.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: An explanation of what Yassen was doing/Yassen's plan. (In so much as explanations make sense in this place).


End file.
